Point guard and center are arguably the two most important positions in the game of basketball. They were also the top two positions of need for Indiana in last year’s transfer portal cycle. The Hoosiers needed a big fella to replace eventual first-round pick Kel’el Ware. IU was also in dire need of a point guard upgrade after the enigmatic Xavier Johnson exhausted his eligibility. Mike Woodson had money to spend and holes to fill. Indiana was objectively a bad rebounding team last year, so it dialed up Oumar Ballo’s number. The Arizona-transfer center was one of the top available glass cleaners on the market. Even with a lob threat like Ware, Indiana’s pick-and-roll offense was dreadful, so the Hoosiers tabbed Myles Rice, who was an outstanding ball-screen maestro at Washington State after miraculously beating cancer.
On paper, the moves made some sense to address some of IU’s warts, but it has not coalesced. Indiana (14-9 overall, 5-7 in Big Ten play) has gone from a preseason Big Ten title favorite to one of the biggest disappointments in the nation.
One-hundred and twenty-six miles east of Bloomington, a similar story has reared its ugly head at Cincinnati. The Bearcats, once ticketed as a top-15 team nationally, have fallen off a cliff despite oodles of continuity. Even after Wednesday’s 93-83 road win over UCF, Cincinnati sits at just 13-9 overall and 3-8 in league play. It is the biggest disappointment in the Big 12, by a country mile. Instead of competing for the title, Cincinnati is trying desperately to avoid the cellar.
How does this happen? There’s blame to be had all around, but it’s eery how often some of the problems end back where we started: point guard and center.
- Indiana chose to pair Rice (a low-volume 3-point shooter) with Ballo (a center who does not shoot 3-pointers).
- Cincinnati chose to pair Jizzle James (a low-volume 3-point shooter) with Aziz Bandaogo (a center who does not shoot 3-pointers).
When you’re looking for it, everything starts to become clear. Thus, the 20 Club was born. The premise is simple: have your healthy starting point guard and healthy starting center combined for 20 or more 3-pointers yet?
Through 23 games, Indiana’s combination of Rice and Ballo are at 18 combined treys. Cincinnati’s point guard-center duo sits at just 19. Sputtering North Carolina, whose NCAA Tournament hopes are already on life-support, has garnered just 19 combined 3-pointers from starting point guard Elliot Cadeau and its big-man platoon of Jalen Washington and Ven-Allen Lubin.
When the biggest disappointments in the Big 12, ACC and Big Ten all have the same thing in common, there has to be fire raging somewhere beneath these billows of smoke.
There are only 15 high-major teams whose starting point guard and starting center have combined for less than 20 3-pointers.
| Team | Offensive Efficiency Rank | Starting PG (3-pointers made) | Starting C (3-pointers made) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cincinnati | 139 | Jizzle James (19) | Aziz Bandaogo (0) |
| North Carolina | 39 | Elliot Cadeau (18) | Jalen Washington (1) |
| Indiana | 63 | Myles Rice (18) | Oumar Ballo (0) |
| Michigan State | 30 | Jeremy Fears (8) | Szymon Zapala (0) |
| Nebraska | 65 | Rollie Worster (8) | Andrew Morgan (3) |
| Washington | 132 | Vazoumana ‘Zoom’ Diallo (4) | Great Osobor (10) |
| Arizona | 14 | Jaden Bradley (16) | Tobe Awaka (1) |
| TCU | 180 | Vasean Allette (13) | Ernest Udeh (0) |
| Oklahoma State | 154 | Arturo Dean (9) | Abou Ousmane (9) |
| Florida State | 118 | Daquan Davis (19) | Malique Ewin (0) |
| Syracuse | 123 | Jaquan Carlos (10) | Eddie Lampkin (2) |
| Boston College | 178 | Joshua Beadle (14) | Chad Venning (0) |
| Seton Hall | 268 | Garwey Dual (4) | Yacine Toumi (8) |
| Wake Forest | 170 | Ty-Laur Johnson (11) | Efton Reid (3) |
| UConn | 10 | Hassan Diarra (17) | Samson Johnson (0) |
Editor’s note: St. John’s t technically counts (Kadary Richmond and Zuby Ejiofor have made 12 3-pointers combined), but it was not included because point guard Deivon Smith is expected to regain his starting job eventually following his return from an injury. Smith has made 21 treys, so St. John’s avoids the cut-line.
Exceptions prove the rule
As expected, it’s a pretty dreary list, but there are three notable outliers.
- UConn is the poster child of what ancillary pieces you might need to make it work. When healthy, no team has a better trio of shooters than Solo Ball, Liam McNeeley and Alex Karaban. Plus, Dan Hurley’s layered offense creates a galore of unguarded catch-and-shoot 3s for his best snipers.
- Arizona is still starting Bradley and Awaka together, but a big reason behind its midseason rise to the top of the Big 12 standings is Tommy Lloyd’s willingness to play center Henri Veesaar who is a legitimate floor-stretching threat. Veesaar is draining over 37% of his 16 attempts in Big 12 play in just a smidge under 20 minutes per game. Just that threat of Veesaar pulling the trigger from downtown has removed one extra defender from the paint, and Arizona’s drive-first guards are taking advantage. Arizona still has some shooting questions, but they have been mitigated by Lloyd’s sharp self-scouting. Arizona has a +34 net rating with Bradley and Veesaar on the floor together, compared to just +5.7 with Bradley and Awaka, per CBB Analytics.
- Michigan State is the final outlier, of sorts. Tom Izzo’s center platoon of Szymon Zapala and Carson Cooper have not made a 3-pointer all year, and Fears has only made eight treys. That’s the third-lowest mark for a starting point guard at the high-major ranks. But MSU is excellent in the margins. Its transition offense is outstanding. The Spartans constantly win the rebounding battle and they take — and make — a boatload of free throws. Maybe the 9-0 Big Ten start was a bit of a mirage, but it certainly wasn’t a total flash in the pan. Michigan State’s terrific depth also keeps Fears under 30 minutes a game, so MSU can find just enough offense when he’s not on the floor to mitigate some of the concerns.
But MSU’s 0-2 West Coast trip also illustrated that the Spartans’ half-court offense has to get better if it wants to be a real Final Four threat. MSU’s effective field goal percentage in half-court scenarios rates 14th in the Big Ten alone and outside the top-200 nationally. USC and UCLA packed the paint and Michigan State managed just 0.95 points per possession on back-to-back outings. There’s a real ripple effect from having two (and sometimes three) non-shooters on the floor, and when Michigan State can’t dominate the glass or turn defense into transition buckets, it gets cramped quickly.
Picking your poison
From an X’s and O’s perspective, this all makes sense. College basketball is in the middle of drastic stylistic changes. Teams are shooting more 3-pointers than ever before. To counteract that, egregious “dorking” methods have been used by opposing defensive coordinators where a defender completely ignores a non-shooter and clogs the rest of the floor up, practically daring their one-on-one assignment to shoot wide-open 3-pointers. Tennessee is a great example of this. Defenses would rather have Jahmai Mashack take a lightly-contested 3-pointer rather than let Chaz Lanier get a crack from the outside.
Not all 3-pointers are created equal, and offenses with multiple non-shooters on the floor make it a bit easier for defenses to funnel the ball into the right hands.
But this lesson might be more about roster construction. Missouri used to run into this problem when it had Anthony Robinson and big man Josh Gray on the floor together, but Dennis Gates shifted to sniper Trent Pierce at center more often and the Tigers magically have a top-12 offense. Auburn’s historic offense has five-shooter lineups galore when Johni Broome downshifts to the 5-slot.
Maryland knew big man Julian Reese was not magically going to transform into a big-time shooter, so it paired him with Ja’Kobi Gillespie who was one of the top-shooting point guards in the portal. Clemson knew point guard Jaeden Zackery was not ever going to be a high-volume, 3-point sniper, but it smartly paired him with Viktor Lakhin or Ian Schieffelin — two big men who can step out and fire away. Jaylen Blakes was never known as a big-time shooter, but center Maxime Raynaud is a marksman from downtown. Stanford has a top-five offense in ACC play because the marriage between a drive-first point guard and a stretch-the-floor big man has worked out well.
Those chain reactions are hard to ignore. Blakes is the best version of himself because he gets to play with Raynaud. Alone, Rice is a darn good point guard who was one of the best in the Pac-12 (RIP) for a reason. Ballo is a productive big man who had interest from tons of teams. But Rice has not become the best version of himself at IU and while Ballo is getting numbers, it has not impacted winning at a high level.
Selection Sunday is just over five weeks away, but the portal window looms just eight days later. Internal discussions centered around team needs in the portal are already underway. It’ll be paramount to construct a roster where the point guard and the center cover up each other’s flaws and maximize each other’s strengths. Because outside of UConn, no team this season has truly been able to build a firebreathing offense with a point guard who does not want to shoot 3s and a big man who can’t shoot 3s.
The margins are just too slim.
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